yesterday... | ...all my troubles were so far away

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

I'm bad - I just went out and dropped $140 at Borders and Newbury Comics...well, at least I got 6 quality DVDs (Near Dark, Thirteen Days, Dogtown and Z-Boys, Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs, and Citizen Kane), an interesting CD (some PiL), and the new Stones biography. This is in addition to 24 Season 1, which will be here in a couple days, and a whole mess of sci-fi books I ordered off Amazon a couple days ago...ah well. At least I'll get my money's worth...
9:33:46 PM

I don't have a bad opinion of my looks - I'm short and skinny, relatively normal-looking...except for my hair, both on the top of my head and facial. I've got horrible, horrible hair. My facial hair is too sparse and light-colored for me to grow it out, but I'm too lazy to shave as often as I should. My top-of-the-head hair is thin, bleh-brown, and weak. I can't make it look good, no matter what I do. I'd like to just shave it - less to worry about - but I've got a feeling I'd look like crap with a shaved head...I did it once before, but wasn't really paying attention to how it looked. I was too infatuated with the sheer fact of not having hair. Then again, that might be reason enough, right there - to make me happy. I really need to figure out SOMETHING. It's just long enough now that I REALLY hate it, but a haircut will just be a temporary fix until it pisses me off again. There's got to be a better way...
5:59:31 PM

According to CNET, Cisco has 13,000 engineers and 14,000 sales-and-marketing weasels. Is it normal for a tech company to have more weasels than real workers? And please excuse my contempt for marketing types - I'm just bitter that there are 14,000 of them working for Cisco, and they can't sell enough product to get me a raise...argh.
5:41:05 PM

AA is No.1 place to meet female millionaires. [FARK]

Time for me to move to New York and take up drinking, I think. But the AA people don't like the press, it seems:

"The purpose of our meetings is to let people share their experiences and help others find sobriety. It is not a place to pick up women!" an AA spokesman told The Post.

=)
5:27:42 PM

Celtics tickets available Friday. Boston Globe Sep 18 2002 2:38PM ET [Moreover - Boston news]

yay! Now I know what to spend a couple hundred bucks I've got sitting around from a bonus on...
5:23:06 PM

Man Utd crush Maccabi. Manchester United open their Champions League campaign with a 5-2 win against Maccabi Haifa at Old Trafford. [BBC News | UK]

Poor Israelis - not only do they have to play their 'home' games in Cyprus because none of the other teams are willing to visit Israel, they have to open their run against Man United. Ouch.
5:19:35 PM

I really want to move to Montreal. It symbolizes some kind of alternate universe within a few hours drive, I think. If I were to get in the car right now, I could be in Montreal in time for a late dinner. True, that's also the case with New York, but Montreal is both foreign and familiar in ways that New York isn't. The foreign is obvious - it's in a different country, they speak a different langauge - but Montreal feels more like home than any city besides Boston. Even London, which made perfect sense to me very quickly, doesn't resonate quite the way Montreal does. I can't explain why, but I know I want to be there. I check monster.com periodically, looking for Perl or ClearCase jobs in Montreal. I check Strategy First, a computer game publisher headquartered on Rue St. Paul in the heart of the old city, to see if they've listed any relevant jobs on their web site...at this point, I should realize the futility - I've got a one year lease that doesn't expire until next September. I'm going nowhere any time soon. But if I had the chance? Yeah, I'd go.
2:32:44 PM

I read an article in last week's Newsweek on the transformation of Rolling Stone into a Maxim-derived 'laddie' magazine...the article wasn't that interesting, but what jumped out at me was a selection of covers from Rolling Stone, Esquire, Stuff, FHM, Maxim, GQ, and maybe something else - can't remember right now. They were all almost exactly alike - large-breasted model type, wearing a shirt buttoned loosely, an undershirt, or topless, and panties. GQ was a woman bursting out of a wedding cake, wearing only panties and whipped cream on her nipples. Rolling Stone was Jennifer Love Hewitt, lying down and jutting her breasts out at you. Maxim was Lucy Liu. FHM? Elisha Cuthbert from 24. Stuff was some girl - I don't know the name. Esquire bucked the trend - Jennifer Aniston, just the top half.

It was just strange to see the covers all next to each other. I wish they had the pic online, but I can't find it. The genericness boggles the mind.
1:13:58 PM

posted by Vis10n at September 18 8:59 AM. India's slide into facsism... An essay in The Nation by India's Arundhati Roy — novelist, essayist, activist — lays down the facts around a very troubling assertion: people-heavy, nuclear-armed, legitimacy-seeking, proto-super-power India is quickly becoming a fascist state. [MetaFilter]
12:43:39 PM

Race to save UK history [BBC Science & Nature]

If I ever get a billion dollars (Forbes just did an article on how to spend a billion dollars. Seriously.) this is part of what I'd do with it - go out and buy priceless historic items, and then donate them to museums. Personal collections are nice and all, but if I had the choice, I'd go with giving the real thing to a museum and having a replica for myself...

I thought the article about spending a billion was at Fortune at first - and I ran across a list of the 40 richest Americans under age 40. It's not quite as frightening for me as I thought it would be - only one under 30 non-sports-type, so I'm not quite as pathetic as I was afraid I might be. Still - there's 40 Americans under 40 with net worths of at least $108 million. This is not a good thing.
12:38:54 PM

He Blinded Me With Science - Bush Restructuring Science...In His Own Image. Plastic::Politics::Science: The story charges the Bush administration with aggressively removing scientists from Health and Human Services committees that produce opinions the Administration disagrees with... [Plastic: Most Recent]

Just another brick in the wall, as it were. Bush needs to be thrown out of office ASAP...anyone know of a viable impeachable offence we can get him for?
12:29:57 PM

Wave Theory In Sports Arenas. Proving once again that science can be practical, researchers at the University of Hungary in Budapest analyzed videos of "the wave" being done at sporting events and noted some interesting facts. The wave typically moves in a clockwise direction around the stadium. The usual mean speed of the wave is 40 f/s The width of the wave is about 15 rows [Note: This is in keeping with the speed, since the width of 15 rows is rougly 40 feet] Scientists studying 'the wave' will use this data for predicting the behaviors of crowds. The article also includes some brief trivia about 'the wave'. [kuro5hin.org]

Those kooky Hungarians...
12:29:05 PM

Cuba accuses US of Grammys ploy [BBC World]

Ooooh...I get it now. The US is denying visas to Cubans who were nominated for the Latin Grammys. My first thought was something more along the lines of Castro accusing Bush of rigging the Grammys, which just seemed silly, even by international leader standards...
12:26:15 PM

There's nothing quite like an all hands meeting to get you confused and worried about the future - we're reorganizing, though in theory it doesn't impact on me directly. But I have no clue how it all works out - I think they may have said I'm getting moved to Norway or something. That'd be nice...it's cold there. =)
12:24:36 PM

Bush blasts Iraqi 'ploy'. President Bush dismisses Iraq's offer to allow arms inspections¸ as he moves to get domestic backing for action against Baghdad. [BBC News | WORLD]

How DARE Iraq take away Bushie's excuse to go a-huntin'?!? It's all a ploy! A ploy, says I!
9:44:42 AM

Axis of [Your Country's Characteristic Here]
Pick any three countries and this cool applet tells you what they are an "Axis" of. (Link courtesy David Weinberger.) [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

Example:

Mail, Mauritania, Morocco:

axis of arid, predominantly Muslim, North African, camel-driving, former French colony countries whose names start with the letter M.
9:30:00 AM

Understanding HTTP Cookie. Hello and welcome to Monsterpiece Theatre. I Alistair Cookie. As you know, many site use HTTP Cookie for keep track of browser session. Today we are seeing how HTTP Cookie work. [kuro5hin.org]

*head explodes* This is wonderful beyond belief. As a comment at k5 says, "I wish more techincal documents were written in Cookie Monster-ese." Amen.
9:22:34 AM

A War We Can Afford [Washington Post: Editorial]

Not only do I disagree on the financial feasbility of the Iraq thang (sure, we CAN afford it, but we could also afford to give the entire country health insurance...for less than it'd cost to invade Iraq and sit there for 25 years, I bet), but I'm straight-up offended by referring to it as a 'War We Can Afford'. Say that when the bodybags start coming home. Say that when we blow up apartment blocks of Iraqi civilians.


9:19:13 AM

Daschle: Hill Vote On Iraq Is Likely Before Elections [Washington Post: Front Page]

Why? Can anyone give me one good reason why Congress needs to authorize an attack on Iraq before early November? Hussein just caved on the weapons inspectors. The UN won't give us permission to go in, guns a-blazin', for at least a few months - nor should they. The only reason I can see is so that Bush and the Republicans (sounds like a really bad band) can keep distracting the American public from, y'know, REAL problems at home leading up to the election. And Daschle's going to cave? What the hell?
9:16:30 AM

You have been invited to invade Iraq!. How the Web can make planning your next war hassle-free and fun for all. [Salon.com]

heehee!
9:12:05 AM

Trent Reznor's pretty hate machines. A geek before geeks were cool, the high-tech musician explains why he had to reclaim his programming roots for his next album. [Salon.com]

Trent says he's been listening to a lot of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash. What is that leads to almost every rocker getting country-influenced when they start getting near 40? Not that this is a bad thing, but it's weird.
9:09:45 AM

posted by 4midori at September 17 11:35 AM. Snoop Dog to appear in Muppets Movie "The two-hour film, which is currently in production in Vancouver, will feature cameo appearances by Oscar winners Sir Michael Caine and William H. Macy, Snoop Dogg, Carson Daly, Jon Stewart, Kelly Ripa and Rachel Hunter, among others."
Unless The Muppets has suddenly become a program for adults, not kids, what a horrible idea. Would Jim Henson approve of this? I know, let's put Eminem on the teletubbies show! [MetaFilter]

First of all, who cares who's on it? It's MUPPETS! Second, of COURSE the Muppets are mainly for adults now - I was a friggin' toddler when the Muppet Show was on and I'm a diehard fan - buying the DVDs and everything. They want me to watch, along with people 10 years older than me with kids...
9:04:29 AM

Relative history links Royals with Bush. A distant relation connecting the families of Prince William and US President George W Bush is found by a firm putting genealogical data online. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]

Oh great - Bushie is related to the heir to the heir to the crown of England, AND Winston Churchill. Bet the Junta tries to use *that* for publicity...the article says that: "In August US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drew parallels between the latter's "lone voice" on Hitler in the 1930s and modern-day American warnings about Saddam Hussein." Argh.
8:56:53 AM

posted by Conquistador to Football September 17 11:14 AM. Tom Brady: Elite Quarterback?
A lifelong Pats fan, I've been an ardent Bledsoe guy for a long time (I was p*ssed when they let him go to the Bills and I loved every one of his 463 yards on Sunday), but even I am starting to come around on Tom Brady. I spent a lot of time convinced that he couldn't make the throws that Bledsoe could and that the Pats dumbed down the offense for him, but it's becoming obvious that Brady's already one of the best QB's in the league.

I'm not ready to call him the next Joe Montana, and the New England defense sure has made his job easy, but this guy is getting better every week.

So anyone out there still not think the Pats are for real?

[SportsFilter]

Me, I'm disturbed by the Patriots. Really, really disturbed. It takes a lot for me to actually enjoy football - the Patriots going to and winning the Super Bowl was fun, but I wasn't going nuts about it. But this year's version? Either the Steelers and the Jets are horrible teams or the Patriots are a very, very good team. Actually, the Steelers do look to be a horrible team, but the Jets aren't *that* bad. The Pats aren't going to go 16-0, but 13-3 isn't out of the realm of possibility. I read somewhere that Bob Kraft, the owner, has told Belichik (the coach) and Pioli (the player personnal guy) that his goal is to have the most successful franchise of the decade. Based on how they put together last year's team and the early returns from this year, I think that's a reasonably viable goal. Which frightens me - the Pats are supposed to suck, right?
8:54:30 AM

posted by Conquistador to Basketball September 17 10:41 AM. Pierce Stabbing Trial Finally Starts
We always think of pro athletes as untouchable, and they generally see themselves the same way. Not Paul Pierce, who was nearly killed in a Boston nightclub two years ago. He'll soon be taking the stand as his stabbing trial begins this week.

It was obvious that Pierce was going to be good, but I think that the incident made Pierce a better player. You always hear about Vince and T-Mac, but Pierce is a better player who is only now getting national attention after the Celtics' run to the Eastern Conference Finals.

[SportsFilter]

Amusingly, he's just now beginning to be hated by the hardest of the hardcore Celtics fans - the aptly-dubbed Fellowship of the Miserable who haunt the Boston sports scene. Y'see, Pierce is too selfish. Which, I admit, did seem to be the case during the hellish World Championships, and he doesn't pass very well when double-teamed, as we saw in the EC finals against the Nets. But he still plays a mean game of basketball...and he's wearing Celtic Green, which makes him infallible in my eyes. =)
8:50:29 AM

It's O'Brien for Democrats. Boston Globe Sep 18 2002 5:22AM ET [Moreover - Boston news]

Damn - I was rooting for a Democratic gubernatorial nominee I'd actually want to vote for. Instead, I get a moderate. Ah well - anything to keep that Mormon death penalty fan out of the corner office...
8:48:07 AM

I'm baaaack. I had a busy but uninteresting weekend, and a lot of work to do Monday and Tuesday. I've got some time now, and hopefully I've got something worth writing about - we'll see. =)
8:43:22 AM

the sun will come out... | ...tomorrow